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It Is Finished
This is our hope: For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day. – John 6:40 As an evangelical, the thing I miss most about my liturgical church is the liturgical calendar. Holy days don’t sneak up on you. When Christmas comes around, you’ve got 4 weeks of preparation under your belt. You are spiritually prepared to celebrate our Savior’s birth. It’s the same with Easter. In the liturgical church, it’s not a “Don’t blink or you’ll miss it” affair. You’ve got 40 days to reflect…
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Worthy of Our Worship
I am Yahweh; that is my name. I will not give my glory to anyone else or the praise I deserve to idols. – Isaiah 42:8 (Names of God version) I went to a wonderful exhibit this weekend, Discovering the World of Jesus. There were several ossuaries including the one believed to have held the bones of James, the brother of Jesus. There’s evidence that two of the others held the bones of John the Baptist and Zechariah, his father. They were amazing, but the artifact that caught my eye was an incense shovel. What stopped me in my tracks so I could get a good picture? Take a closer look.…
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Holiness
Then He said, “Do not come near here; remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” Exodus 3:5 This week’s attribute may seem like a contradiction to last week’s friendly, sociable, genial qualities. Yahweh is both sociable and holy–set apart. Holiness is separateness. He is set apart from sin and set apart to moral perfection. How can He be both? By His mercy and grace. Ann Spangler says it so well: In his holiness, God exists above and apart from the world he has made. The kicker is this: How can a holy God who can have no communion with sin have anything to…
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What more could you ask for?
We’re starting out in Genesis again this week – what a surprise! I can’t pin down this attribute with just one word – they’re all inadequate. Friendly, sociable, genial, approachable–they all fall short in describing the King of Creation who genuinely enjoys hanging out with us. When we think of Genesis 3, we tend to either get a sinking feeling about the serpent enticing Eve to sin or the promise of Jesus found in Genesis 3:15. But I also see in Genesis 3 a Father who genuinely enjoys the company of his children. Now they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and…
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The Goldilocks Principle
The heavens are telling of the glory of God; And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. – Psalm 19:1 Another thing we learn from creation – our God is a genius. His genius of design is everywhere we look, in every branch of arts and sciences. The cosmos proclaims, “He designed this–for us!” The Goldilocks Principle In astrobiology, the Goldilocks Principle applies to the range of distances that a planet can be from its star and maintain surface temperatures that are just right for water to be liquid. This range is known as the Goldilocks Zone. Temperatures that allow for liquid water are considered “just right” because life as we…
